You don’t have to be a fan of The Doors to recognize that “strange days have found us.” America used to be the sole country founded on an excellent idea. Now our land brims with emotion addicts. The same can be said of our politics. Twenty-five hundred years ago it was a stolid affair. In 2010, politics is an open air video game dominated by circus freaks. At a time in which our republic appears on the brink of financialdissolution, some of its most shallow citizens are driving the news cycle. Their intervention is helpful and evidences the truth behind the cliché “stupid is what stupid does.”

Indeed, $700,000 of our tax dollars were spent for the purposes of brainwashing drumming up support among seniors for a statist power grab. The level of analysis from this long-time leftist, who has come full circle, reverting back to “Lonesome Rhodes,” the Olbermann-esque character that launched his career, was truly worthy of the Democratic Party.

No specifics, drawbacks, tax increases, or abridgements of freedom were addressed. Instead, we got treacle:

This year, like always, we’ll have our guaranteed benefits and with the new health care law, more good things are coming. Free checkups, lower prescription costs, and better ways to protect us and Medicare from fraud. See what else is new. I think you’re going to like it.

Well, I guess “totalitarianism is coming” wouldn’t have been as catchy. However, it is not clear why 2,000-plus pages of legalese — that not even our legislators can understand — was needed were the bill a simple improvement upon the present system.

ObamaCare was crafted by our elites. Missouri put the initiative before its voters and they soundly rejected it by a three to one margin. Hopefully, this outcome will alert Mr. Griffith of its coercive aspects.

That he overlooked them is typical. Democrats pervasively reject cost/benefit analysis. They have no choice in the matter. Integral to being a party drone is the belief that whatever your side does is awesome and whatever the other does is evil.

A perfect example of this conformist mindset was evident during the president’s recent appearance on The View. Joy Behar, one of the program’s hosts, listed as accomplishments … everything Obama has done.

She announced, “You’ve signed 200 plus laws since you’re in office, financial reform has taken place, you’ve got health care, two women on the Supreme Court … and yet the right wing, through Fox News and other outlets, seem to be hijacking the narrative.”

Here Ms. Behar seemed incapable of distinguishing between action and achievement. A trained parrot can sign a bill. It is only noteworthy should that signature produce laws which aggregately improve upon the status quo.

However, history teaches us that most of what Congress passes is short-sighted and disastrous. In light of the socialist misadventure that has been Obama’s reign thus far, we all would have been better off had he vacationed for the past year-and-a-half.

In the spirit of “all is well … always,” Andy Griffith left out of his sound bite the $529 billion that Congress ripped out of Medicare.

Enrollees in Medicare Advantage will suffer a cut in benefits beginning in 2012.

Luckily, Andy’s not worried. Nineteen-sixty-five was a good year.

In the sixties, we had freedom riders. In 2010, we have dumbo riders. Reverend Al Sharpton, an honorary doctor of irrationality, demanded that the public respond to the passage of Arizona’s [for the record, “noncontroversial”] immigration law by initiating mass freedom walks.

The remedial Sharpton wondered, “What is the difference between us and any Mexican or any Haitian or anyone else?” Thanks for asking, Al. Enlightening the unenlightened was never so easy.

The disparity between an illegal alien and an American is that one is a citizen and the other … is not. Obviously, ethnicity has nothing to do with citizenship. How could it?

America is the most fair, kind, and non-discriminatory nation on this earth. We let in a massive amount of immigrants each year and do not weed them out based on their ability or what they have to offer.

32 Comments, 20 Threads

1.
Habib

“Fifty years ago you could call a moron a moron and a skank a skank.”
Did the word skank exist fifty years ago? I suspect that fifty years ago forthright people would call a moron a moron but a skank a slut.”

How many more Lady Gaga’s must I endure in my lifetime. When she’s 30 she’ll be forgotten and another vapid, entitled, sociopathic narcissist will take her place. The left take an tact to minimalize a conservative in an argument, yet they elevate these know-nothings to a place of prominence in important discussions. I’m afraid the Sisyphean rock is over the top of the hill. There are too many people beholded to the government, and too many others who desire to be. Let us not forgot the haunting words of the Grand Inquisitor to Jesus in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov:

“Oh, never, never can they feed themselves without us! No science will give them bread so long as they remain free. In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet, and say to us, “Make us your slaves, but feed us.”…

… They will marvel at us and look on us as gods, because we are ready to endure the freedom which they have found so dreadful and to rule over them — so awful it will seem to them to be free. But we shall tell them that we are Thy servants and rule them in Thy name….”

And later says:

“… We shall show them that they are weak, that they are only pitiful children, but that childlike happiness is the sweetest of all. They will become timid and will look to us and huddle close to us in fear, as chicks to the hen. They will marvel at us and will be awestricken before us, and will be proud at our being so powerful and clever that we have been able to subdue such a turbulent flock of thousands of millions.”

Isn’t that how the political leftist elite and their prostitutes in Hollywood view things? Lady Gaga gets on stage and screams it out. Just be blissfully ignorant like me, and you’ll be happy!

Freedom is a tough row to hoe, but it’s worth it. Our schools used to prepare people for survival in a free society. No more. Now they act just the Inquisitor suggested. They teach that true freedom comes with subservience to the elites. They taught it was more important to put a condom on a cucumber than to teach the basics of economics. If economics was taught, it was to hammer away at the injustices of the American model.

Until freedom is honored again in our school system, I hold out little hope for anything but more government control in the future, as successive generations grow up not knowing any better.

As for signing laws, one of my favorite quotes is from Marcus Tillius Cicero. “The more laws, the less justice.” One only has to look around to see the wisdom in this two-thousand year old bit of wisdom. Of course, Joy Behar would dogmatically call Cicero a Right Wing Fanatic if he ever came on the show.

Bernard Chapin writes:
“The “youth culture” is a toxic legacy of the 1960s. It fools the most privileged among us into thinking that they have something to say. Generally, they do not, but the Democratic Party covets their allegiance. Without the uninformed they’d be asphalt.”

- Yes, we should ONLY let experts like Mr. Chapin tell us what to think, who to disparage. Are we to be programed to NOT think for ourselves? The only “informed” individuals are those informed by experts such as Mr. Chapin.

Really? Did you read the essay? I agreed with the author before the words were published. Why are our kids being subjected to “Shakira” and a “Lady Gaga” (of what aristocratic line does this “Lady” belong to, perchance?) And regarding “informed” individuals and their demagoguery, that’s right from the socialist playbook. Thou shall bow at the feet of the so-called expert. David, some people don’t want to bow and don’t want their children to bow. We prefer to stand on our own, and not be shouted down by someone with a pulpit, teleprompter or microphone. But from your response, I gather you are not one of those people, so please resume your genuflection.

n0mad,
in reference to “youth culture” not having anything meaningful to say, I can only speak from my youthful experiences of the 60′s. Youth may be lacking experience but they are good at noticing the hypocrisy of preceding generations. The 60′s generation noted the hypocrisy of sending our boys 10,000 miles away from home, for what? Was it correct to protest a war that was mostly meaningful to the military industrial complex Dwight D. Eisenhower talked about(-now he was a real socialist, huh?)?
No, I don’t agree with Mr. Chapin’s toxic legacy of a “youth culture”. Perhaps if we’d have heeded the wisdom of the youth, there wouldn’t be so many names on that black slab…..
My point being, that those among us who profit in some way from the status quo write articles such as this, knowing they have an audience who will nod in agreement. Those that are nodding in agreement to Mr. Chapin are no doubt, bowing at the feet of a self appointed expert.

Rick,
(My best friend from high school and college teaches school in Pickens County, beautiful place)
-Glad you brought that up (-my perferred “expert”?)
Any MSM outlet such as MSNBC or Fox News will have a profit motive attached to all they report. Gaining ratings and disseminating information often clash with one another, don’t you think?
In determining the truth, one must question the motives. If Ms. Maddow is reporting on gays in the military, i’d be certain she’d have a motive to report the facts skewed in one direction. If Glen Beck is hawking gold, i’d be suspect of his objectivity in reporting…..
-just sayin’.
But back to the point of Mr. Chapin’s article. Are kids to be dismissed because the listen to Lady Gaga? Personally, i’ve never listen to her until i saw these 2 guys re-make her video…..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haHXgFU7qNI
-that stout guy has some dance shoes on! But, if I want to know what happening in Afghanistan, I’ll ask my boys stationed at Ft. Bragg. To be sure, they know more about it than Bill’O or Olberman do….

Good piece here.
But since the folks who’ve commented already have made all the salient points, let me just lament here, mourn here for a moment what Andy Griffith has done.
Forget about obnoxious dopes like Lady Gaga and the gushing and mindless Joy Behar. How can Andy(yeah, I’m thinking here of him as Andy from the show) shill for Obama? Could you imagine what Obama and the nanny care army would have done to the life of Mayberry- which, after all, was based on Mt. Airy where Griffith was raised?
It’s not Griffith’s life-long support for Democratic candidates that’s disappointing. But how can he support such a radical plan that would turn people into wards of the state, with all the consequent loss of freedom and dignity. Andy Griffith has enough money to avoid his fate being determined by a death panel(it’s not hyperbolic to describe the bean counters of state run health care as that). He ought to read more deeply.

Mr. Walters::
Chapin gives us something more in this: he is not trapped in Critical Theory; constructive criticism with wit and flair — not at all what our ‘expert leaders’ (w/o portfolio) are spewing at great expense and seriously greater cost.
Thoughtless criticisms in an attempt to inflict harm yield mindless comments that deserve to be laughed at; but there again we arrive a humor, requiring more than deep thought: sense & conciousness.
Hopefully that will make you feel better, otherwise, as Dr. O says, “just take the red pill.”

“Chapin gives us something more in this: he is not trapped in Critical Theory; constructive criticism with wit and flair….”-writes Dexter60

-”Critical Theory”? Can’t address that very well since I don’t really know much about it. But what Mr. Chapin writes is hardly constructive criticism. What he presents is fear meant to elicit a response. His agenda is to have you identify with what he is selling…..

“Voting the leftists out of Congress this November will begin the process of restoring both freedom and America.”

-As if his crew would do anything about either. After eight years of Bush and six years of a Republican majority in congress, little more than window dressing on the illegal immigrant issue was accomplished. A few sweeps of hog processing plants and such, but very little is done by EITHER party to address the root cause of the immigration problem. Employers of illegal immigrants go relatively unpunished, yet it is they who entice these people to cross the border illegally in the first place. Wouldn’t that be the logical place to start if we truly want to stem the flow of illegals? It would sure cost a lot less than a fence (-and a welfare give away to fence building contractors).
They way I see it, both ends of the political spectrum are pandered to by their own intellectuals. In casting “youth culture” and illegal aliens as fearsome enemies, Mr. Chapin is getting you to take his own little red pill.
All I’m asking is for everyone to question the motives of those “experts” who disseminate information.

You have to understand who Lady Gaga is. She is what we used to call nouveau riche. She sees illegals not as thugs, criminals, or gang-bangers but as servants, modern slaves to be owned, and to expect their worship of her generosity. These people are no different than the old plantation owners.

Andy is kinda odd. He’s done at least two gospel music albums, which liberals would tend to shy from (one of which was only about 10 or so years ago). Also, in the special features of the Face in the Crowd DVD, he states plainly that there were communists working to bring down the U.S. during the McCarthy era. That’s not something most libs will even admit to. Andy did.

But then came that stupid Obama promo with Opie. Now this.

I’m beginning to suspect that, now in his later years, he’s veered off into real liberalism beyond being just a Democrat. Or he’s had those leanings all along but kept them hidden, but now is old enough and wealthy enough to just not care, and so shows his true colors.

Speculation, I know. But the guy is somewhat complex. Or was. I just can’t figure the guy out.

If Lady Gaga can’t tell the difference between an immigrant and an illegal immigrant, perhaps this could educate her: Hey, Lady Gaga, can you tell the difference between a paying concert-goer and one who sneaks into your show without paying?

Who cares what these vapid idiots think about anything? They’re entertainers, not statesman, not philosophers, not anything more than an ephemeral pattern of electrons on your aptly named idiot box. As if I’m going to take advice from some cavone named Gaga? Fuggedaboutit!

Thank you all for reading. As far as the question of experts goes, you should not worry about what you think of someone personally but instead evaluate the arguments that they make. Responding to actual arguments is a fundamental difference between right and left.

I don’t know what an expert is in terms of politics. I’m a citizen and have to right to express my opinion which I’ve done here. You should evaluate and respond to the arguments as they are written. However, the leftist cannot do this. He is a slave to status and cares whether someone went to Harvard, Yale etc. Those schools and most of the others now are nothing but PC cesspools. I’d rather listen experience and logic than status.

My grandfather was a 2nd grade dropout but he knew more about life than your average college professor does today. Leftists seek to discredit as a rule because they are emotionally enmeshed in politics. There is no other way for them. They cannot argue point by point because if they did observers would soon realize the futility of statism. The idiocy of a 3.7 trillion dollar budget cannot be defended. Therefore, they attack the person.

To be young is generally to be uninformed as a rule. We should no more listen to them than Barbara Streisand–especially now with utterly corrupted universities. This is obvious but youth make the best Democrats as even the oldest among them do not reflect on the unintended consequences of statism. Vietnam was a bad idea and Kennedy was wrong to get us involved in it, but the spoiled narcissists of the sixties would have protested going to fight in Europe in WWII or just about anything else or inconvenienced them. The radicals of the 60s are in the process of destroying this country…let’s all verbally fight them together!

It will, of course, be far too late
when comes the holy Caliphate;
whichever way you choose to turn,
you’ll see enlightened volumes burn,
and “entertainers” of today
may learn at last the Muslim way
of treating those with novel views:beheading or a stoning: choose!

The real tragedy is to see the very old Andy Griffith dragged out to perform for his democrat master Obama. Andy once had the respect and admiration of the American people for his portrayal of a basically decent sheriff in a basically decent town. Obviously this was a false front because underneath Andy was really a left wing democrat; and kept it hidden very well. It has long been known that little dopie who played his son is a very left wing Hollywood, wine and brie liberal who does a lot of support the Left wing version of this country but Andy seemed above that. I hope that Barney and Floyd were straight shooters but who knows.

Lady Gaga is simply a popular performer displaying the same conformist ideology of other popular performers.

Why treat her with such bile and disdain?

If she reads this, she will say “gee, what crazy rotten idiots those conservatives are, they show contempt for me without even getting to know me.”. And she would be right! Attack the views, not the person. If you do this, you can win converts. If you attack people, you simply gain enemies.

Also, the way we make collective decisions is through government, which is sluggish, incompetent and stupid. Illegals enter the country through clever entrepeneurs who face considerable challenges and figure out ingenious ways through the system. I would think that as Republicans we would prefer that admissions method to the formal, legal and highly dysfunctional system our government has created.

“Lady Gaga is simply a popular performer displaying the same conformist ideology of other popular performers. Why treat her with such bile and disdain?”

Why? Because she treats her concert audience with condescension.

People who buy tickets to a concert are paying for a musical performance. They are NOT inviting the performer to lecture them on politics or whatever other topics she feels like ranting about. But once they are in their seats, this particular performer views them as a captive audience, unable to leave without forfeiting the money they paid for her singing. So she figures this is an ideal opportunity to shove her political views down the throats of people who didn’t ask for them, cannot offer any rebuttal, and have no choice but to grit their teeth and endure her cynical, narcissistic prattling.

Lady Gaga is certainly not the first performer to insist that her fans listen to her politics along with her music. But perhaps she should learn from the fate of the Dixie Chicks. Performers are, of course, as free to express their views as anyone else . . . ON THEIR OWN TIME. But while they’re on stage in front of an audience that has PAID to see them perform, they are employees on the clock, and should stick to the work that they accepted the money for.

How would you react if your dentist decided to subject you to a political screed in the middle of working on your teeth, knowing that you were unable to reply or flee? I suspect that you’d find another dentist as soon as possible. People who indulge in this sort of opportunistic manipulation are saying that their professional services and their political views come as a package deal, and you have to accept both or neither. They don’t seem to realize that many people will choose “neither.”

This is what happened to the Dixie Chicks. They suffered a public backlash not, as they claimed, simply because they expressed views that many of their fans disagreed with. No, it was because they insisted on expressing those views DURING A CONCERT, effectively saying to their fans: “We are bundling our music and our politics together. If you embrace one, you must embrace the other as well.” And their fans responded by saying, “Fine. We reject your views AND your music. Don’t let the doorknob hit you in the ass.”

Lady gaga and the rest are just performers that only knows how to entertain and anything in their mind cannot affect the people choice. No one care about what they think as long as they do their job, to entertain.